Impact

The value of Creative Placemaking

Social impact: Creative projects bring together people of diverse backgrounds. They offer opportunities for artists to share their creative practice to deepen community connections and create a shared vision for change. They can inspire residents to transform a neighborhood in ways that reflect their own sense of beauty, history and identity.

Courtney Bowles and Faith Bartley, artists from The People’s Paper Co-op in Philadelphia, a creative social enterprise at The Village of Arts and Humanities that helps neighborhood residents clean up their criminal records

Physical impact: Creative placemaking transforms the physical environment in ways that make it distinctive, recognizable as home to a unique culture. Renovating, repopulating and embellishing spaces can nurture new connections and other types of revitalization. Murals, street art, and community designed transit enhancements bring as sense pride to a neighborhood and can deter negative impacts on the built environment.

Artist Brenda Gentry paints prominent women in history on the exterior wall of a beauty supply store in Peoria.

Economic impact: Creative placemaking supports the livelihood of local artists as cultural innovators and entrepreneurs. It fosters the development of arts-related business clusters and artisanal manufacturing. It creates opportunities for neighborhood businesses to grow by highlighting the unique culture of place through festivals and events. Once enhanced with art and bustling with activity, a neighborhood draws more commerce and foot traffic, which in turn stimulate investment and create jobs. 

A renovated warehouse in Covington became CVG Made, a woodworking and restoration business where owner Steven Sander plies his trade.